February 25, 2014

And The Logic Is?????

17 Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon.

It is somewhat ironic that we are facing the centennial year remembrance of the "war to end all wars" even as we seem to be retracing the steps that proved the futility of that analysis.

Chuck Hagel, who is obviously following his marching orders, is pushing for a radical, demoralizing reduction in our armed forces and notably the US Army. He plans to take us back to pre-WWII levels of manning while conceding that : "We are entering an era where American dominance on the seas, in the skies and in space can no longer be taken for granted." [quote taken from HERE] I have zero confidence in this decision, whether considered from economic, political or strategic perspectives. I am convinced that it is a political maneuver that further shifts the conversation away from the manifest failures of the past six years to the economic idea of "balancing the budget", a project that has not been promoted by the current ruling powers in any significant sense. It puts conservatives in the difficult postion of arguing "against budget cuts" when they are at the expense of all that wasteful, bloated military-industrial evil empire. It seems clear to me that it also is not only acceptable, but desirable, to some that the United States sink to parity, or even sub-parity, with other major powers. I doubt there are any laudable motives behind this also.

What is perhaps the most astonishing aspect of this decision though is that it is being justified on "economic grounds." At a time when the United States is facing historic lows in the ratio of working age citizens actually holding a job and earning an income, this plan seeks to dump another 40-60 thousand men and women onto the job market. Perhaps no other expenditure of Federal funds returns so much on investment as our military provides. At a time when the Government is seeking to raise minimum wage, and provide "kick-start" infusions of cash into the economy, to stir sales and create jobs, the sheer idiocy of taking money out of the hands of useful citizen soldiers and their families, appears not only illogical but idiotic. Those military salaries are spent mostly in the economy... there is a reason why states compete for military bases and defense contracts. This is so blatantly counter-productive that I cannot understand how any responsible leader would contemplate such a move in such a "down" economy.

That is not to argue that "more military spending is better" without constraint... it is possible, as the history of the Soviet Union proves, to have the military budget so out of proportion to other expenditures that it does not allow any other flexibility. There is a balance required that is determined by strategic considerations as well as overall economic/ national economy. A nation like Switzerland may have strategic considerations that call for a significant military, hemmed in as she is by other powers, but her national economy simply cannot provide for one, under any circumstance.

So, there must be a balance, but the current economic debacle facing our country is not driven by the size of our military, it has been driven by the economic and political failures in other areas. I do not agree with the manner in which we have diminished our military presence and activities in the Middle East, but I can see the logic of ending our participation in the conflict. We have fought and fought well and it is time for the military to be pulled back. Pulling back and dismantling are two different things.

I believe that we are in a period of international uncertainty that is more dangerous than any time since the 1930's. Even the Cold-War, with all its paranoia, was less scary than this. I think there is a greater threat for a nuclear event of some sort now than during the Cuban Missile crisis. The political structures and economic relations are so tenuous that I think that military / political adventurism is almost inevitable. It was the weakness of those nations which became the allies which left them with few options to deal with the resurgent fascist states and was cause for contempt by those states' leaders. Imbalanced weakness is the corollary to imbalanced strength and historically precedes instability that ends in massive bloodshed.

There is no guarantee that a funded military would prevent adventurism when faced with ideological fanaticism... but it does limit the options that such fanaticism can exercise. I hate the terrorist activities that burden this world... but I hate the idea of direct national conflict even more. It is, in the long run, strategically better to ensure that the largest threat we face is localized though widely dispersed terrorist strikes than to face, say, a threatened invasion of Taiwan or the Ukraine or Israel. It is sheer foolishness to think that there will never again be a large scale military conflict. Nothing in the passage of time has ever given any warrant for such a conclusion. Becoming too weak to fight a major war is one of the most certain ways to make such a war attractive to potential enemies.

Nehemiah faced a significant challenge. His purpose was to defend Jerusalem so that she could prosper. To accomplish both goals he had to tell his citizens to build with one hand and hold their weapon in the other.

This two-pronged approach is what we need now. There are many ways to bring about fiscal solvency in our economy. Unproductive expenditures need to be cut. Paying non-productive citizens and aliens diminishes the capitalistic imperatives for seeking a job. Firing productive military men and women and curtailing defense expenditures in such a drastic manner appears to me to be a deadly, disastrous policy.